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Comment by roomey | Hacker News Reader

Good art isn't defined by how much people will pay for it. That is fashion. Some artists are lucky, some are good at kissing ass and schmoozing, some are very talented and are recognised by people with money.

But that is all fashion.

If you want to buy some art, see some new stuff, or ask questions, find your nearest art college and go to the end of year show. The only problem if you will have to decide yourself what you like!

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>find your nearest art college and go to the end of year show

This. I just want to add: If you want to see more interesting things, if you have a choice, go to the less prestigious school. I have seen my fair bit of end of year shows, and the prestige of the institution is directly correlated with how orthodox everything is.

Well, art is just embedded into society, akin to is JavaScript the best programming language. Art means the art market. A lot of art, like performance art, is really a hard sell. That's why painting is still thriving. But there is also the correlation of that if some artist gets famous in art circles because of the quality buyers will want to play cool and buy stuff. Another complication is that there are two types of artists, a very small percentage that sells well, and then there are the ones that just live from the next art residence, to the next Biennial. The latter are plenty and not really commercial in the first place, because committees are deciding. If this is then the same as your personal taste is questionable. Bonding with artists and supporting them is most likely the best way to go, as you implied.

Being successful as an artist has very little to do with making good art. It's much more about getting picked up by one of the handful of major galleries that will promote you to collectors as the new "hot" artist.

There's a talk by Albert-László Barabási about this :

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RfgjHoVCZwU&pp=ygUUYmFyYWJhc2k...

"The hidden networks of everything" (7-8mins)

Well it depends what you mean by successful.

If you mean earning a lot of money by selling art, then yes, it's all about playing the game, and who you know.

The vast majority of artists don't do this, many make a living through more regular jobs like teaching for example, and the art is a passion project.

For many, having to make a living from their work would spoil their reason for doing it in the first place even!

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